Potato Crisps with Chive-Sour Cream Dip

Grace Parisi makes brilliant use of throw-away potato peels: She deep-fries them until they’re crispy, then sprinkles them with Parmesan. An utterly addictive snack, they’re great with cocktails, beer or wine.

Ancho-Scallion Roast Turkey Breast

Roasted Winter Squash with Herbs and Garlic

With patches of man-size pumpkins and green gourds hanging from trellises at Hudson Ranch and Vineyards, some kind of squash dish is a requirement at Thanksgiving dinner. This simple gratin features cubes of melt-in-your-mouth winter squash flavored with thyme and sage.

Apple Cider-Braised Turkey Drumsticks

Braising drumsticks is as simple as roasting a whole bird and the gravy is equally delicious, but there’s no worry of over-cooking, plus you can prepare the dish ahead and serve it whenever you are ready.

Twice-Baked Sweet Potatoes with Toasted Marshmallows

In this clever version of candied sweet potatoes with marshmallows (one of Gary Vaynerchuk’s favorite Thanksgiving dishes), Grace Parisi mashes sweet potatoes with deeply flavorful grade B maple syrup and butter before stuffing them back into their skins and baking them a second time.

Chunky Cranberry Sauce

Haricots Verts and White Beans with Shallot Vinaigrette

At Thanksgiving, it’s always great to have a couple of dishes that don’t have to go in the oven. This combination of creamy white beans and slightly crunchy haricots verts makes an interesting textural mix, and it’s sturdy enough to stand at room temperature for several hours.

Vidalia Onion Soufflés

Vidalia onion soufflé was a fixture at Thanksgiving and Christmas meals when City Grit’s Sarah Simmons was growing up in Fayetteville, North Carolina. This version—lighter and airier than the one her mother makes—can be prepared in individual gratin dishes or in one big baking dish. Feel free to use any sweet onion you can get, such as Vidalia, Walla Walla or Oso Sweet.

Crunchy Broccoli Slaw

Most people throw away broccoli stems, preferring to eat the florets. But cut into long thin strips with a fine julienne peeler, the sweet and crunchy stems are perfect in a fresh-tasting slaw with carrots, scallions and salty sunflower seeds.

Whipped Yukon Gold Potatoes

These potatoes from Ad Hoc have a wonderfully fluffy texture because they’re passed through a ricer or food mill to make them especially airy. But they’re also nicely rich, thanks to generous amounts of butter and heavy cream.

Brussels Sprouts with Lemon and Thyme

Chef Nuno Mendes separates brussels sprout leaves by hand before sautéing them, an extremely time-consuming task. Thinly slicing the sprouts vertically—by hand or with a food processor fitted with a slicing blade—gets similar results in a fraction of the time.

Bacon, Onion and Rye Bread Stuffing

After tossing the ingredients and spreading them in a pan, Melissa Rubel Jacobson chills the stuffing for at least an hour before baking. This ensures that the bread soaks up the liquid—key to a stuffing that’s crisp on top and moist within.

Old-Fashioned Apple Pie

Baker AJ Perry uses a combination of sweet and tart apples for this double-crust pie. Perry starts the pie at a high oven temperature, so the pastry sets before the filling softens, creating a beautiful domed crust. This is a purists’ pie that tastes of nothing but apples, with just a hint of spice and butter.